Mobile Website vs. Mobile App - Case Study on Myntra

- Friday, May 6, 2016

In May 2015, Myntra decided to shut down it’s website from May 15, 2015 and shifting to an exclusive mobile app-based model. This will be the first such instance of an e-commerce player transforming into a mobile-only entity as internet usage on smartphones witnesses a surge in India.

Myntra believed that the mobile app will bring in more innovations, such as adapting to a viewer's location or previous purchases and cameras to shop for outfits. Definitely it was a bold move by Myntra and many analysts and investors criticized it as ill-thought out decision that would alienate many shoppers.

In May 2016, Myntra is withdrawing from its mobile-only strategy and will relaunch the desktop version of its website from June 2016 in an attempt to bring back lost customers and drive growth. Experts said the constant changes in the app-only strategy shows it hasn't worked as well as the company had projected.

Competition from other competitors (e.g. Jabong, Amazon India, Snapdeal etc.) where they are giving multiple access points to its’s consumers.

So what happened in last one year?

Moving to Mobile App only model had it set backs like losing out traffic from all other sources. Search Engines can’t crawl and index individual product pages of Mobile App. Referral Traffic and Backlinks are not possible for mobile app product pages.

Social Sharing is not possible for app product pages. Users/Visitor cannot share the product pages or traffic can be driven from Social Media (Facebook, Twitter) to these App Product Pages. And the same with PPC and Email Campaigns.

Losing these SEO, Referral, Social, PPC and Email visitors/traffic resulted into loss in Sale/Revenue for Myntra. Although Myntra says they lost only 15% to 20% of revenue, I guess the actual loss is a lot more than that.

Conclusion

Myntra wanted to be the ‘Trend Setter’ with their Mobile App Only Model in the Market. Which back fired on them, resulting loss in traffic and revenue. Realizing their strategy didn’t work they decided to roll back the decision. SEO matters. Social Media matters. Make the most of all sources like PPC, Email Campaign etc.